More than ever, there are serious career pathways for people who like to play video games — whether it's in development and design, competitive gaming, or streaming on sites like Twitch and YouTube.

But there's still a big gap between the reality of gaming as a serious industry with plenty of potential careers for young people, and the way it's perceived — especially by parents.

Here's why it's a good idea to start thinking of gaming as a passion that can help build communities and set up young people for a potentially lucrative career, rather than a useless, distracting hobby.

Gaming doesn't have to be antisocial

For some people, gaming conjures up images of young men sitting bleary-eyed in their bedrooms eating corn chips and drinking soft drink.

It's a persistent stereotype, and one that doesn't reflect the reality of modern gaming, says Steven Conway, a senior lecturer in games and interactivity at Swinburne University of Technology.

For the vast majority of aspiring pros though, the reality is long hours of practice and very little — if any — money.

"When you look at lifetime earnings, once you get down to people outside of the top 50, you find people might only earn $11,000 or something in three or four years of 'pro' video gaming," Mr Jessep says.

"It's like the tennis circuit. You've got elite players doing very well, and you'll have a lot of players just scraping by."

But as professional gaming starts to be taken more seriously, by audiences and sponsors, those opportunities to make money or even build a career are only likely to increase. And the money isn't just in playing games, but designing them too.

The Nintendo Switch, which is popular with children, comes with a mobile phone app that allows parents to set time limits, control which games are played and monitor their child's activity, Dr Conway says.

"You can absolutely lock content of a particular rating, or the times when it can be used," he says.

"I was with a friend who was away from home. He didn't want his kids using the Switch, so he launched his app and he locked it."

While parental controls are a great tool, they aren't a replacement for supervision, Dr Conway says.